Around here thirty-six: 09/02-09/08

Friday, September 9, 2016

a glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

Intentional hours outside: 429 hours (of 1000)
up 15 hours from last week thanks to a few evenings out by the fire, swimming on Labor Day at Gigi and Pappy's house to finish out the season before they close their pool, and celebrating our cousin Benny's 2nd birthday. Our resident toad who we lovingly call Big Steve, had us all nervous last weekend when he was laying upside down on his back after Bullet picked him up in his mouth for a minute before spitting him back out. Bully's mouth was all irritated for a little while from Big Steve's secretions and the kids were able to get up close and get a good look at him before he flipped over and hopped away just fine. And Grey, Brandon and the dogs got #80 of my 100 small things list finished up: camp in the backyard! (the girls, me, and Rusty all slept inside!)

Enjoying a fun 'preseason' cook out and fire with our friends the Hinton family laughing and chatting. Our whole family is excited about spending basketball season together!

Pulling off professional family photos with our entire crew thanks to the tremendous and amazing talents of Tab James of Adlive Collective. We've only seen a preview yet of one of the photos but I can hardly stand the wait to see the whole set. It was our first family of six profesh pics and I'm so glad to update our photos in the house since our Rusty man is missing from them still!Cracking up about Violet. The girl is cray. She has a new trick where she leaps from the side of the couch and sit-jumps on top of Greyson and Gemma while all three laugh hysterically. We're calling it her 'monkey jump.' She's been leaving approximately 36 selfies on my phone camera roll these days too that I find when I get the storage almost full message daily. I'm busy planning her second birthday party (!!) and really enjoying this still-squishy toddler that she is for as long as we get to keep her that way.

Thankful for our babysitters to the rescue this week: Aunt Dar, Chum, and Pappy! We are hopeful to have our babysitter situation squared away and taken care of by the end of the next week. If you have some extra good vibes, send 'em our way that we can find the right fit.

Meeting Grey's teacher and checking out his room at the open house this week. He is really loving first grade. He had his first spelling test and started homework too - which has been kind of nice, especially as it inspires Gem to practice writing and wanting to learn new things too. The kids think it's hilarious now when I use my bonafide teacher voice ("is that how you talk to your students too, Mum?!) when we do homework and Gem is begging for some work papers to do too!